Losing You
by Kittenshift17
Summary: Sometimes you never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. And memories are all I've got left.


**Losing You**

* * *

It seemed to happen in slow motion.

That's how it felt. I heard her scream those curses. I watched you laugh and taunt her as though we were still at school and simply duelling for the fun of it. How could you forget the monster your cousin is? How could you just taunt her like that? Her stunning spell missed you because you're quick and clever, but she was expecting you to be distracted. She knew you'd be cocky about it.

And then that green jet of light struck your chest and I watched the laughter die on your lips.

Vaguely, I was aware of other things in the room. Of Tonks toppling down the steps unconscious. Of Mad-Eye sprawled on the ground and bleeding from the head. Of Harry, doing as you'd asked and trying to get the prophecy and Neville Longbottom out of this wretched place. I was aware of it all, but only dimly. Only in the nature of one who is in so much shock and so much pain that inconsequential things are suddenly brought into focus.

It was that slow motion effect caused by awful things happening at high speed.

That's what your death did to me.

I could see the laughter still dying on your lips and the mixture of fear and surprise in your eyes as you arched backwards with all the grace you'd ever had in life before you fell through that Whispering Veil, never to return to us.

I still cannot say if it was a subconscious urge to protect Harry from following you through and into death, or my own urge to do as he was and try to save you from the fate that had already befallen you. I can recall intercepting Harry and squeezing him so tight it's a wonder the boy didn't have bruises.

He fought me so hard Sirius.

As hard as James would have in the same circumstance, were he here to see that light leave your eyes. As hard as I was fighting inside against the reality that you're gone.

That you're both gone from this world and from me.

It hurts Sirius. It hurts inside my chest and has left a desolate pit of despair to fester in my stomach. My head aches with the knowledge, and no amount of alcohol seems able to dull the pain. My heart aches with a fierce throbbing and I can't stop the shaking in my hands.

How can this be our fate?

How can you be gone from me so soon? I only just got you back after so many years torn apart. And now you're gone again. Only this time, there's no chance that I'll ever get you back. This time you're not just locked away, but an entire plain of existence away from me.

How can you be dead?

How can you leave me this way?

Now I've got no one, Sirius. James and Lily are long gone. Peter's a rotten traitor. And now I've lost you too.

I've got nothing left now. Nothing to live for. Nothing but this ache in my soul and this fierce yearning to be reunited with all of you in death. I imagine you and James are having a jolly old time there in the afterlife. As I sit here with my whiskey, I can find solace only in the idea of the two of you finally together again. But it's a short lived reprieve. I should be there too. I want to be there Padfoot. I want to be there with you and Prongs. You know I've never done well alone.

Now it's worse than ever because for all that I hate to be alone, now I crave it too. It's only when I'm alone that it's acceptable to lose myself in this bottle and to mope and cry and curse. When I'm around the others, I'm expected to be strong. To go on. To be a role model for Harry, who is as lost and hurt over this as me. How can I comfort him?

I've never been the father-figure type. That was supposed to be your job. Now he's just boy with all this anger and pain and fury as he grieves the loss of you, the loss of his parents…. I almost want to say the loss of his innocence, in spite of the fact that his life has already been so hard. You don't know what it's done to him Sirius. He's been breaking things. Raging and screaming.

The hardest part of it all is that I want it to be me screaming like that. Sometimes when I'm alone, I do. I scream at the injustice of being the one left behind.

I can't resent you for it. I know that for you, this is a fine ending. You've got Prongs back. You've finally left behind the guilt and the torment that weighed on you in this life. No, I can't hold this against you.

But for my own selfishness, I ache for you. You were the one who made me laugh when I got like this. You were the one who could always find something to do or something to say to make it ok, even just for a little while.

Now there is no one.

I can imagine you're up there with Prongs, probably shouting at me for being such an idiot about Nymphadora. You were always hinting to me that I should pursue her. But how can I Pads? How can I do that to the woman? She's brilliant and beautiful and so much younger than me. She doesn't need to be saddled with me and with all the baggage that comes along with me. She rows with me that she doesn't care about my curse.

How can she not?

How did you and Prongs so easily overcome your fear of Moony? He's already gnawing for release inside me and the moon's not even high yet. Already he's hungry for release, no doubt expecting the night of freedom I so recall from our younger days. I can't let them go Pads. I can't forget. It's like I'm trapped inside my own head and all that's left are the memories of what it was like to have friends. To be with people who loved me in spite of everything.

I want to thank you Sirius. You and James.

I'd never known friendship until I met the pair of you. I spent my childhood locked away so as not to arouse the suspicion of the neighbours. Until I went to Hogwarts and met you idiots, I'd never know what it was like to even speak to someone my own age. And then there was you two. So vivacious and full of life. So mischievous. So accepting.

You did more than simply become my friends. You stuck by me, even when you learned that I'm a monster. Thank you for never pulling away from me. For never recoiling from me in fear or disgust or hatred. Thank you for the sacrifices you made for me. At the time, I thought I was grateful, but I see now that I wasn't nearly grateful enough.

I see now, with you both gone from me, that there was so much I should have and could have done to show you how much you both meant to me.

I guess it's true that you never really know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. And memories are all I've got left. Memories and this album of old photos from the times when we were all still young and handsome and carefree. The time when the most worrisome thing in our life was how we were all going to slip back into to castle after a full-moon night under the cloak when you and James got too tall for it. I wish I had known then what I know now of how our lives have turned out.

I wish I'd known that in just twenty short years, that brilliant friendship we all shared would be torn apart by lies and secrets and death. I wish I'd known so I could've savoured every moment I had with both of you. I wish I had both of you back, even just for an hour or two, just so I could look upon your faces and give you both a hug. So I could thank you both for being the great friends you were to me. So I could tell you both how much I love you.

There are so many things I wish Sirius, and they're eating me up inside. I can't get it out of my head. I can't sleep, because every time I do you're there in my nightmares, that laughter I love so much dying on your lips, your taunting voice still ringing inside my head. Every time I close my eyes I see you falling back through that veil. All I want is for you to be back here. You and James and Lily. It's consuming me from the inside out. It eats at me, gnawing and tearing and ripping.

I can't forget. I can't focus. I can't even think because every time I do it's with a yearning for things I can never have.

All I've got left now is the lonely moon in the sky, peeking out from behind the clouds, waiting to call the monster out of me. The moon and all these memories.

There's only one good thing about all this. One good thing that's come of the loss of you.

I'm not afraid of the moon anymore. I'm not afraid of the pain or the transformation. For the first time in my life, I'm hungry for it Pads. I want it bad. I'm craving it. I've stopped taking the Wolfsbane potion. I don't want to stay in control tonight. Tonight, I'm embracing the madness within. I'm embracing the werewolf that lives inside my soul and I'm yearning for the way he'll take over my mind. I want to forget. I need to get out of my head.

Ironic really, isn't it? In life, you and James were my safe-haven and were what protected me from the fear and the pain and the horror of my curse. Now, in death, the change is my safe-haven for the fear and horror and pain of losing you.


End file.
